Swiftpage case study

Swiftpage was founded in 2001 to fuel the growth of small businesses. Their flagship product Act! is the #1 best-selling Contact & Customer Manager. For many years, Act! was a traditional license and maintenance software business, but, a couple of years ago, Swiftpage decided to shift to a subscription model, with a more comprehensive offering to include software, services, and business integrations.

In addition to creating recurring revenue streams for Swiftpage and its Certified Consultant channel, a flexible subscription model would also appeal to their target market of SMB who would be more willing to pay for a subscription (as an operational expense) rather than a lump cash sum on licenses (as a capital expense).

Once they’d decided to make the shift, they looked for a subscription management solution. According to Joe Greenspan, VP of Commercial Operations, “We chose Zuora because it was the recognized leader in the space and shared Swiftpage’s vision. Moving to a subscription model was not just a technology play, but a cultural shift — and Zuora didn’t just provide a technology platform, but a business aspiration.”

Swiftpage knew there was some risk in moving from a traditional license and maintenance model and faced the challenge of migrating a large install base. They rolled out the shift in North America first and then internationally, successfully migrating over one-hundred thousand customers to date.

Eighteen months after launching their subscription offering, their retention rate had already increased by 25%. Says Greenspan, “With our license model, fostering ongoing relationships with our customers was a challenge. With our subscription model, we’ve shifted our entire interaction philosophy to be more engaged with our customers throughout their lifecycle.”

Swiftpage has created new upsell paths and cross-sell opportunities to deliver additional value to customers including additional tiers of support, third party products and services, and other integrations. They’ve simplified their product catalog, trimming down a large number of legacy SKUs into a clean handful of rate plans that can easily accommodate both existing and new customers. And they’ve standardized their pricing across regions, reps, and teams.

Since the shift, Swiftpage has experienced substantial overall growth. In 2016, subscription customers increased by 140% and ARR (annual recurring revenue) increased by 131% globally. With ever greater efficiency in attracting, retaining, and growing their customer base, Swiftpage provides a great example of a company successfully riding the waves of the subscription economy.